1920 Manistee County, MI: A Hughes-Cox County? Or Clerical Error?

[E-Dawg]

The infographic for this county on Wikipedia claims that it voted 50.2%.2-46.3% for Hughes and 47.8%-47.7& for Cox. This would make it one of only two Hughes-Cox counties in the entire country (the other being Polk County, NC)! However, Wikipedia also claimed that the 1920 county numbers differed between sources, and the nationwide county graph shows Harding winning >60%. This leads to believe that the numbers that show Cox winning are inaccurate because every other Republican from 1896-1928 easily won the county (outside of the 1912 GOP split), with Coolidge winning 58.1% and Hoover 1928 winning 60.7%. Also, every county in 1920 surrounding it voted hard GOP. Do you guys think there is any chance Cox truly won the county, and if so why would that be the case? Was the county very pro World War I/League of Nations for some reason? Was there a strong anti-German sentiment? I can't think of any other possibilities.

[bagelman]

For reference, USElectionAtlas is the source for the Wikipedia numbers which shows Manistee MI going to Cox by 5 votes (2,179-2,184-150-57). This is a D+0.11 margin and a D+4.0 swing from 1916.

The second most Democratic county in MI is Monroe (R+24.28, 3422 vote margin). All other counties have an R swing, the weakest from Alpena (R+10.77 swing, R+28.78 margin).

Michigan overall was over 70% for Harding.

I would say that unless there is historical evidence suggesting a reason why the county had a special support for Cox '20 for any reason that it is a clerical error and we should assume our data is wrong and the county voting Harding.

[DabbingSanta]

https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:1920nationwidecountymapshadedbyvoteshare.svg

Corrected Manistee County, Michigan per Manistee News and Advocate, Wednesday November 3rd 1920

It is almost certainly an error.  Someone corrected it on the nationwide county map on Wikipedia back in 2015, but sadly didn't provide a link to the source.

[E-Dawg]

Can anyone find the source that puts Harding at >60% ?

[bagelman]

https://www.manisteenews.com/local-history/article/100-YEARS-AGO-15692605.php

“Senator Harding’s majority over Gov. Cox in Manistee county was 2,567 votes, or rather better than two to one.

Rather better than two to one implies approaching 70% R. I think this proves that our current data is in error.

[DabbingSanta]

Now I'm wondering about Arenac County in 1888. Only county in the north to vote for the Union Labor candidate, and one of two counties in Michigan where Streeter got >5%

Oh well, I guess that's for another thread 😂

[E-Dawg]

https://www.manisteenews.com/local-history/article/100-YEARS-AGO-15692605.php

“Senator Harding’s majority over Gov. Cox in Manistee county was 2,567 votes, or rather better than two to one.

Rather better than two to one implies approaching 70% R. I think this proves that our current data is in error.

Awesome find. Now we just need the source that was used to fill the county in as >60 Harding on the nationside map

[Calthrina950]

Robert J. Menendez's The Geography of Presidential Elections also claims that Manistee County was a Hughes-Cox county, and one of only two in the country. It identifies Polk County, North Carolina, as the other one. Hughes won Polk County 52.5-47.5% in 1916, while Cox carried it 50.7-49.4% four years later. Harding did not improve that much over Hughes in North Carolina, and Cox obtained almost the same percentage there as Wilson.

[E-Dawg]

Robert J. Menendez's The Geography of Presidential Elections also claims that Manistee County was a Hughes-Cox county, and one of only two in the country. It identifies Polk County, North Carolina, as the other one. Hughes won Polk County 52.5-47.5% in 1916, while Cox carried it 50.7-49.4% four years later. Harding did not improve that much over Hughes in North Carolina, and Cox obtained almost the same percentage there as Wilson.

Weird, Wikipedia claimed that Manistee County was the only one. Did that book give any information or reasons why the county would have voted that way? Until we find any historical evidence I think we should still assume the numbers are simply wrong. The North Carolina county is weird, but it may be explained by the massive turnout increase, and North Carolina barely swung R anyways. I would assume that one is an actual Hughes-Cox county. Are there any other Hughes-Cox counties Wikipedia missed?

[Calthrina950]

Robert J. Menendez's The Geography of Presidential Elections also claims that Manistee County was a Hughes-Cox county, and one of only two in the country. It identifies Polk County, North Carolina, as the other one. Hughes won Polk County 52.5-47.5% in 1916, while Cox carried it 50.7-49.4% four years later. Harding did not improve that much over Hughes in North Carolina, and Cox obtained almost the same percentage there as Wilson.

Weird, Wikipedia claimed that Manistee County was the only one. Did that book give any information or reasons why the county would have voted that way? Until we find any historical evidence I think we should still assume the numbers are simply wrong. The North Carolina county is weird, but it may be explained by the massive turnout increase, and North Carolina barely swung R anyways. I would assume that one is an actual Hughes-Cox county. Are there any other Hughes-Cox counties Wikipedia missed?

Not to my knowledge. And I don't know what sources Menendez used. His book was published in 2005, and covers the presidential elections from 1868-2004.

[TransfemmeGoreVidal]

I was just reading through the geography of presidential elections and remembered this thread and was going to cite that as a source but see that it already was cited. What’s weird to me is that it also has a much higher percentage of German ancestry than English which makes this even less likely. I suppose it’s possible that it could actually have flipped for reasons that are lost to the ether. Maybe James Cox had relatives that lived there or simply held a big campaign rally. Maybe there was a lot of local progressive sentiment which led to the more conservative then Hughes Harding being a turnoff. Maybe the local Democrats did a better job of mobilizing new women voters then the Republicans. Who knows?

There probably are low level weird electoral trends going on under the radar that just never get written about. I’m not saying it’s impossible that it was an error but I just wouldn’t assume it.

[Death of a Salesman]

Votes cast in Michigan and Manistee County by year
1916: 650,973 & 4,704 (0.72% of votes cast)
1920: 1,048,411  & 4,570 (0.44% of votes cast)
1924: 1,160,419 & 6,371 (0.55% of votes cast)

As a percent of the state's population, Manistee declined from 0.95% in 1910 to 0.57% in 1920 to 0.36% in 1930. This makes a direct interpolation tough, but I'm pretty confident that some Harding votes were lost.

If Harding won by 2,571 votes, then the number of votes cast would be 7,146, 0.68% of the votes cast in Michigan. That fits much better.

[Vice President Christian Man]

I'm going to agree with the posters claiming it was a clerical error although Polk County NC actually flipped and I believe that it was the only actual Hughes-Cox county. It was extremely close so I'm guessing that it was due to higher turnout.

[E-Dawg]

I'm going to agree with the posters claiming it was a clerical error although Polk County NC actually flipped and I believe that it was the only actual Hughes-Cox county. It was extremely close so I'm guessing that it was due to higher turnout.

I didn't know about Polk County when I first made this thread. I just edited the thread title and the original post to mention that other county. I would agree that Polk's County's flip seems legitimate due to it having much higher turnout than in 1916, and because North Carolina as a whole barely shifted to Harding.